Most discussions of the digital divide focus on the gap between African Americans and others when it comes to using, and benefiting from, the technological and business opportunities of the information age. Although many African Americans are locked out of the information revolution, others are an integral part of its development and progress. Barber profiles 26 of those leaders here, engagingly and informatively blending biography with insight and analysis. Most discussions of the digital divide focus on the gap between African Americans and others when it comes to using, and benefiting from, the technological and business opportunities of the information age. Although many African Americans are locked out of the information revolution, others are an integral part of its development and progress. Barber profiles 26 of them here, engagingly and informatively blending biography with insight and analysis. Documenting history as it is being made, this book features achievers in all fields of relevant endeavor, including scientists, business leaders, power brokers, and community leaders. Among them are Robert Johnson, CEO of Black Entertainment Television; Richard Parsons, CEO of AOL Time-Warner; congressmen and other policymakers in Washington, D.C.; and men and women who are working to bridge the digital divide in satellite radio, web-based portals, and on the ground with IT workshops. This book is not just about business success or technological progress. The African American digerati are solving one of the great social challenges of the 21st century: creating a black community that is prosperous in a society that has changed from being a land-based industrial society to a cyberspace-based information society.

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transformation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the field and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and communities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the field of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing field.

This book, published in honor of Professor Laurent Praly on the occasion of his 65th birthday, explores the responses of some leading international authorities to new challenges in nonlinear and adaptive control. The mitigation of the effects of uncertainty and nonlinearity - ubiquitous features of real-world engineering and natural systems - on closed-loop stability and robustness being of crucial importance, the contributions report the latest research into overcoming these difficulties in: autonomous systems; reset control systems; multiple-input-multiple-output nonlinear systems; input delays; partial differential equations; population games; and data-driven control. Trends in Nonlinear and Adaptive Control presents research inspired by and related to Professor Praly's lifetime of contributions to control theory and is a valuable addition to the literature of advanced control.

This revised edition of McEliece's classic is a self-contained introduction to all basic results in the theory of information and coding. This theory was developed to deal with the fundamental problem of communication, that of reproducing at one point, either exactly or approximately, a message selected at another point. There is a short and elementary overview introducing the reader to the concept of coding. Following the main results, the channel and source coding theorems is a study of specific coding schemes which can be used for channel and source coding. This volume can be used either for self-study, or for a graduate/undergraduate level course at university. It includes dozens of worked examples and several hundred problems for solution.

This book presents state-of-the-art solution methods and applications of stochastic optimal control. It is a collection of extended papers discussed at the traditional Liverpool workshop on controlled stochastic processes with participants from both the east and the west. New problems are formulated, and progresses of ongoing research are reported. Topics covered in this book include theoretical results and numerical methods for Markov and semi-Markov decision processes, optimal stopping of Markov processes, stochastic games, problems with partial information, optimal filtering, robust control, Q-learning, and self-organizing algorithms. Real-life case studies and applications, e.g., queueing systems, forest management, control of water resources, marketing science, and healthcare, are presented. Scientific researchers and postgraduate students interested in stochastic optimal control,- as well as practitioners will find this book appealing and a valuable reference.

This book contains selected papers of NSC08, the 2nd Conference on Nonlinear Science and Complexity, held 28-31 July, 2008, Porto, Portugal. It focuses on fundamental theories and principles, analytical and symbolic approaches, computational techniques in nonlinear physics and mathematics. Topics treated include - Chaotic Dynamics and Transport in Classic and Quantum Systems - Complexity and Nonlinearity in Molecular Dynamics and Nano-Science - Complexity and Fractals in Nonlinear Biological Physics and Social Systems - Lie Group Analysis and Applications in Nonlinear Science - Nonlinear Hydrodynamics and Turbulence - Bifurcation and Stability in Nonlinear Dynamic Systems - Nonlinear Oscillations and Control with Applications - Celestial Physics and Deep Space Exploration - Nonlinear Mechanics and Nonlinear Structural Dynamics - Non-smooth Systems and Hybrid Systems - Fractional dynamical systems

This book, along with its companion volume, Nonlinear Dynamics New Directions: Theoretical Aspects, covers topics ranging from fractal analysis to very specific applications of the theory of dynamical systems to biology. This second volume contains mostly new applications of the theory of dynamical systems to both engineering and biology. The first volume is devoted to fundamental aspects and includes a number of important new contributions as well as some review articles that emphasize new development prospects. The topics addressed in the two volumes include a rigorous treatment of fluctuations in dynamical systems, topics in fractal analysis, studies of the transient dynamics in biological networks, synchronization in lasers, and control of chaotic systems, among others. This book also: * Develops applications of nonlinear dynamics on a diversity of topics such as patterns of synchrony in neuronal networks, laser synchronization, control of chaotic systems, and the study of transient dynamics in biological * Includes a study of self-organized regularity in long-range systems * Explains use of Levenstein's distance for measuring lexical evolution rates

This book is intended to introduce coding theory and information theory to undergraduate students of mathematics and computer science. It begins with a review of probablity theory as applied to finite sample spaces and a general introduction to the nature and types of codes. The two subsequent chapters discuss information theory: efficiency of codes, the entropy of information sources, and Shannon's Noiseless Coding Theorem. The remaining three chapters deal with coding theory: communication channels, decoding in the presence of errors, the general theory of linear codes, and such specific codes as Hamming codes, the simplex codes, and many others.

An all-in-one resource for designing and implementing embedded control in mobile robotics In Embedded Control for Mobile Robotic Applications, a distinguished trio of researchers delivers an authoritative and fulsome resource for understanding embedded control and robotics. The book includes coverage of a variety of embedded platforms, their use in controller implementation, stability analyses of designed controllers, and two new approaches for designing embedded controllers. The authors offer a full chapter on Field-Programmable-Gate-Array (FPGA) architecture development for controller design that is perfect for both practitioners and students taking robotics courses and provide a companion website that includes MATLAB codes for simulation and embedded platform-specific code for mobile robotic applications (in Embedded C and Verilog). The two approaches discussed by the authors--the top-down methodology and the bottom-up methodology--are of immediate practical utility to both practicing professionals in the field and students studying control applications and mobile robotics. The book also offers: A thorough introduction to embedded control, including processor, IC, and design technology, as well as a discussion of limitations in embedded control design Comprehensive explorations of the bottom-up and top-down methods, including computations using CORDIC, interval arithmetic, sliding surface design, and switched nonlinear systems Practical discussions of generic FPGA architecture design, including Verilog, PID controllers, DC motors and Encoder, and a systematic approach for designing architecture using FSMD In-depth examinations of discrete-time controller design, including the approximation to discrete-time transfer function and embedded implementation stability Perfect for practitioners working in embedded control design and control applications in robotics, Embedded Control for Mobile Robotic Applications will also earn a place in the libraries of academicians, researchers, senior undergraduate students, and graduate students in these fields.

This book centres on a broadened view of complexity that will enrich engagement with complexity in the social sciences. The key idea is to employ complexity theory to develop a holistic account of practice, agency and expertise. In doing so, the book acknowledges and builds upon the relational character of reductive accounts. It draws upon recent theoretical work on complexity, emergence and relationality to develop a novel account of practice, agency and expertise in and for workplaces. Biological, psychological and social aspects of these are integrated. This novel account overcomes problems in current views of practice, agency and expertise, which suffer from reductive, or fragmented, analyses, based upon individuals, groups, or networks. In retrieving the experiential richness of human activity - often esteemed as the basis of generative and creative life - this book shows how complexity both emerges from, and is, a non-reductive feature of, human experience, especially in daily work. "...an ambitiously wide-ranging volume, questioning the key tenets of respected approaches ..... and offering ..... 'novel accounts', which draw on features of complexity thinking.... ...But they go further than any of us in their argument that: 'whatever reductive moves are made, they 'flow' from holistic accounts of relationality which have already affectively engaged the purposes of a co-present group.' This is the intellectual contribution that is built consistently and persuasively across the chapters." Professor Emerita Anne Edwards, Oxford University "Hager and Beckett have written a book that will challenge more commonly held notions of agency, practice, skills, and learning. Centering their argument on complexity theory or, as they prefer, complexity thinking, Hager and Beckett argue that it is through relations that we raise questions about, gather data from, and make working sense of the complexity that surrounds us. Groups then, particularly small groups, hold and implement agentive power. And what the authors call co-present groups-ones in which holistic relationality occurs socially, and affectively in distinctive places-"draw us closer to each other, and harness our normativity by enabling negotiability and reason-giving." If your field of study involves anything remotely sociocultural in nature or if you are just interested in the complex ways we engage as humans with our worlds, you should find a place for this book in your library." Bob Fecho, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York NY, USA

This book focuses on computational and fractional analysis, two areas that are very important in their own right, and which are used in a broad variety of real-world applications. We start with the important Iyengar type inequalities and we continue with Choquet integral analytical inequalities, which are involved in major applications in economics. In turn, we address the local fractional derivatives of Riemann-Liouville type and related results including inequalities. We examine the case of low order Riemann-Liouville fractional derivatives and inequalities without initial conditions, together with related approximations. In the next section, we discuss quantitative complex approximation theory by operators and various important complex fractional inequalities. We also cover the conformable fractional approximation of Csiszar's well-known f-divergence, and present conformable fractional self-adjoint operator inequalities. We continue by investigating new local fractional M-derivatives that share all the basic properties of ordinary derivatives. In closing, we discuss the new complex multivariate Taylor formula with integral remainder. Sharing results that can be applied in various areas of pure and applied mathematics, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students, and can be used to support seminars in related fields.

Adding one and one makes two, usually. But sometimes things add up to more than the sum of their parts. This observation, now frequently expressed in the maxim "more is different", is one of the characteristic features of complex systems and, in particular, complex networks. Along with their ubiquity in real world systems, the ability of networks to exhibit emergent dynamics, once they reach a certain size, has rendered them highly attractive targets for research. The resulting network hype has made the word "network" one of the most in uential buzzwords seen in almost every corner of science, from physics and biology to economy and social sciences. The theme of "more is different" appears in a different way in the present v- ume, from the viewpoint of what we call "adaptive networks." Adaptive networks uniquely combine dynamics on a network with dynamical adaptive changes of the underlying network topology, and thus they link classes of mechanisms that were previously studied in isolation. Here adding one and one certainly does not make two, but gives rise to a number of new phenomena, including highly robust se- organization of topology and dynamics and other remarkably rich dynamical beh- iors.

The book investigates stability theory in terms of two different measure, exhibiting the advantage of employing families of Lyapunov functions and treats the theory of a variety of inequalities, clearly bringing out the underlying theme. It also demonstrates manifestations of the general Lyapunov method, showing how this technique can be adapted to various apparently diverse nonlinear problems. Furthermore it discusses the application of theoretical results to several different models chosen from real world phenomena, furnishing data that is particularly relevant for practitioners. Stability Analysis of Nonlinear Systems is an invaluable single-sourse reference for industrial and applied mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, researchers in the applied sciences, and graduate students studying differential equations.

Provides a comprehensive introduction to multi-robot systems planning and task allocation; Explores multi robot aerial planning, flight planning, orienteering and coverage, and deployment, patrolling, and foraging; Includes real-world case studies; Treats different aspects of cooperation in multi-agent systems.

This book proposes tools for analysis of multidimensional and metric data, by establishing a state-of-the-art of the existing solutions and developing new ones. It mainly focuses on visual exploration of these data by a human analyst, relying on a 2D or 3D scatter plot display obtained through Dimensionality Reduction. Performing diagnosis of an energy system requires identifying relations between observed monitoring variables and the associated internal state of the system. Dimensionality reduction, which allows to represent visually a multidimensional dataset, constitutes a promising tool to help domain experts to analyse these relations. This book reviews existing techniques for visual data exploration and dimensionality reduction such as tSNE and Isomap, and proposes new solutions to challenges in that field. In particular, it presents the new unsupervised technique ASKI and the supervised methods ClassNeRV and ClassJSE. Moreover, MING, a new approach for local map quality evaluation is also introduced. These methods are then applied to the representation of expert-designed fault indicators for smart-buildings, I-V curves for photovoltaic systems and acoustic signals for Li-ion batteries.

This book covers the topics on cyber security in IoT systems used in different verticals such as agriculture, health, homes, transportation within the context of smart cities. The authors provide an analysis of the importance of developing smart cities by incorporating technologies such as IoT to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) within the agenda 2030. Furthermore, it includes an analysis of the cyber security challenges generated by IoT systems due to factors such as heterogeneity, lack of security in design and few hardware resources in these systems, and how they should be addressed from a risk analysis approach, evaluating the risk analysis methodologies widely used in traditional IT systems.

This book examines comparatively the US and the UK governments' management of Y2K and considers the extent to which such management can be understood as responses to market pressures, public opinion and organized interests. It concludes by providing valuable lessons to those concerned about managing risk and critical infrastructure today.

This book discusses the latest progresses and developments on complex systems research and intends to give an exposure to prospective readers about the theoretical and practical aspects of mathematical modelling, numerical simulation and agent-based modelling frameworks. The main purpose of this book is to emphasize a unified approach to complex systems analysis, which goes beyond to examine complicated phenomena of numerous real-life systems; this is done by investigating a huge number of components that interact with each other at different (microscopic and macroscopic) scales; new insights and emergent collective behaviours can evolve from the interactions between individual components and also with their environments. These tools and concepts permit us to better understand the patterns of various real-life systems and help us to comprehend the mechanisms behind which distinct factors shaping some complex systems phenomena being influenced. This book is published in conjunction with the International Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling & Simulation 2019 (CoSMoS 2019): IoT & Big Data Integration. This international event was held at the Universiti Sains Malaysia Main Campus, Penang, Malaysia, from 8 to 11 April 2019. This book appeals to readers interested in complex systems research and other related areas such as mathematical modelling, numerical simulation and agent-based modelling frameworks.

Bionics means learning from the nature for the development of technology. The science of "bionics" itself is classified into several sections, from materials and structures over procedures and processes until evolution and optimization. Not all these areas, or only a few, are really known in the public and also in scientific literature. This includes the Lotus-effect, converted to the contamination-reduction of fassades and the shark-shed-effect, converted to the resistance-reduction of airplanes. However, there are hundreds of highly interesting examples that contain the transformation of principles of the nature into technology. From the large number of these examples, 250 were selected for the present book according to "prehistory", "early-history", "classic" and "modern time". Most examples are new. Every example includes a printed page in a homogeneous arrangement. The examples from the field "modern time" are joint in blocks corresponding to the sub-disciplines of bionics.

Applied and Computational Control, Signals, and Circuits: Recent Developments is an interdisciplinary book blending mathematics, computational mathematics, scientific computing and software engineering with control and systems theory, signal processing, and circuit simulations. The material consists of seven state-of-the-art review chapters, each written by a leading expert in that field. Each of the technical chapters deals exclusively with some of the recent developments involving applications and computations of control, signals and circuits. Also included is a Chapter focusing on the newly developed Fortran-based software library, called SLICOT, for control systems design and analysis. This collection will be an excellent reference work for research scientists, practicing engineers, and graduate level students of control and systems, circuit design, power systems and signal processing.

Optimal Estimation of Dynamic Systems, Second Edition highlights the importance of both physical and numerical modeling in solving dynamics-based estimation problems found in engineering systems. Accessible to engineering students, applied mathematicians, and practicing engineers, the text presents the central concepts and methods of optimal estimation theory and applies the methods to problems with varying degrees of analytical and numerical difficulty. Different approaches are often compared to show their absolute and relative utility. The authors also offer prototype algorithms to stimulate the development and proper use of efficient computer programs. MATLAB(r) codes for the examples are available on the book s website.

New to the Second Edition
With more than 100 pages of new material, this reorganized edition expands upon the best-selling original to include comprehensive developments and updates. It incorporates new theoretical results, an entirely new chapter on advanced sequential state estimation, and additional examples and exercises.

An ideal self-study guide for practicing engineers as well as senior undergraduate and beginning graduate students, the book introduces the fundamentals of estimation and helps newcomers to understand the relationships between the estimation and modeling of dynamical systems. It also illustrates the application of the theory to real-world situations, such as spacecraft attitude determination, GPS navigation, orbit determination, and aircraft tracking.

This book offers an introduction to ten key topics in quantum information science and quantum coherent phenomena, aimed at graduate-student level. The chapters cover some of the most recent developments in this dynamic research field where theoretical and experimental physics, combined with computer science, provide a fascinating arena for groundbreaking new concepts in information processing.

The book addresses both the theoretical and experimental aspects of the subject, and clearly demonstrates how progress in experimental techniques has stimulated a great deal of theoretical effort and vice versa. Experiments are shifting from simply preparing and measuring quantum states to controlling and manipulating them, and the book outlines how the first real applications, notably quantum key distribution for secure communication, are starting to emerge. The chapters cover quantum retrodiction, ultracold quantum gases in optical lattices, optomechanics, quantum algorithms, quantum key distribution, quantum control based on measurement, orbital angular momentum of light, entanglement theory, trapped ions and quantum metrology, and open quantum systems subject to decoherence.

The contributing authors have been chosen not just on the basis of their scientific expertise, but also because of their ability to offer pedagogical and well-written contributions which will be of interest to students and established researchers.

This monograph investigates the stability and performance of control systems subject to actuator saturation. It presents new results obtained by both improving the treatment of the saturation function and constructing new Lyapunov functions. In particular, two improved treatments of the saturation function are described that exploit the intricate structural properties of its traditional convex hull representation. The authors apply these treatments to the estimation of the domain of attraction and the finite-gain L2 performance by using the quadratic Lyapunov function and the composite quadratic Lyapunov function. Additionally, an algebraic computation method is given for the exact determination of the maximal contractively invariant ellipsoid, a level set of a quadratic Lyapunov function. The authors conclude with a look at some of the problems that can be solved by the methods developed and described throughout the book. Numerous step-by-step descriptions, examples, and simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of their results. Stability and Performance of Control Systems with Actuator Saturation will be an invaluable reference for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in control engineering and applied mathematics.

The book reports on the latest advances in and applications of fractional order control and synchronization of chaotic systems, explaining the concepts involved in a clear, matter-of-fact style. It consists of 30 original contributions written by eminent scientists and active researchers in the field that address theories, methods and applications in a number of research areas related to fractional order control and synchronization of chaotic systems, such as: fractional chaotic systems, hyperchaotic systems, complex systems, fractional order discrete chaotic systems, chaos control, chaos synchronization, jerk circuits, fractional chaotic systems with hidden attractors, neural network, fuzzy logic controllers, behavioral modeling, robust and adaptive control, sliding mode control, different types of synchronization, circuit realization of chaotic systems, etc. In addition to providing readers extensive information on chaos fundamentals, fractional calculus, fractional differential equations, fractional control and stability, the book also discusses key applications of fractional order chaotic systems, as well as multidisciplinary solutions developed via control modeling. As such, it offers the perfect reference guide for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of fractional order control systems and fractional order chaotic systems.

For the past 50 years, the advancements of technology have equipped architects with unique tools that have enabled the development of new computer-mediated design methods, fabrication techniques, and architectural expressions. Simultaneously, in contemporary architecture new frameworks emerged that have radically redefined the traditional conceptions of design, of the built environment, and of the role of architects. Cybernetic Architectures argues that such frameworks have been constructed in direct reference to cybernetic thinking, a thought model that emerged concurrently with the origins of informatics and that embodies the main assumptions, values, and ideals underlying the development of computer science. The book explains how the evolution of the computational perspective in architecture has been parallel to the construction of design issues in reference to the central ideas fostered by the cybernetic model. It unpacks and explains this crucial relationship, in the work of digital architects, between the use of information technology in design and the conception of architectural problems around an informational ontology. This book will appeal to architecture students and scholars interested in understanding the recent transformations in the architectural landscape related to the advent of computer-based design paradigms.